Absolutely great video. I fully agree that society never thinks about us, and that we are in the back of their minds when designing anything. So I am very glad that you are upfront with your city council and police department and city planner.
You are right. The blind and visually impaired are rarely thought of when accessibility and designs are being formulated. I will be diving into this subject because the General population and even building designers and planners are not aware of the specifications when it comes to ADA. I have been an advocate since before the ADA was actually passed in the early 1990s. I only hope that I can get a positive response working with my city leaders. It will be interesting and I’ll try to share as much as possible as I progress thanks so much for your encouraging comment and give Huckleberry a hug from me and let him know I am glad he is not tie-dyed. Lol!
This was absolutely fabulous! You are a wonderful source of information!! So many people on so many levels need your education right down to Gretchen. You will probably be surprised at how others will come forward and get involved in support. So lovely seeing my beautiful friend! Hugs to you. Love you🤗🤗🤗🤗
Hello my friend! Thank you so much for your encouraging words. I really am trying to keep a balance between peace and harmony and actually confronting some issues that need my advocacy. It’s going to be interesting and I will do what I can for my town and those people who I know personally with vision loss, and my town. It’s so much easier to work with people rather than against them so I will use all of my charm and good manners and if that doesn’t work, I will just sick Gretchen upon them. Actually, she gets much more attention than I could ever get on my own. Wonderful hearing from you and Gretchen sends lots of wags and kisses and I’m sending my love. Beverly
@@bamablind9916 your charm is always welcome❤️ Gretchen surely is a beauty to be in aw of. Your videos of her in the past were inspiring. People in your town are very blessed to have your input to better their town and bring things into better light. I would LOVE to see videos on the way the meetings went. It does sound exciting. Though I am not a restaurant customer or even one who sips any alcohol, you have your work cut out for you. You go Beverly!! Cheering you on!
Yay, you're back again❣️ Smiley! I understand what you mean about trying to balance this, and trying also to have moments of peace and enjoyment, like anybody else. I know some of our downtown has done some spreading and a whole restructuring of buildings, a friend talked me through from inside her SUV back in December. I learned there are some surprise staircases descending on the outside of a corner building coming right down in the middle of a sidewalk that used to be wide open, which will take some getting used to, after years of that not being there. I'm likely to catch them with my cane west from the corner, but know the tricky part will be avoiding slamming my head and face into the underside, if I happen to be headed eastward coming away from, the library or a museum. Actually a lot of our downtown has drastically changed in the space of the last six months of last year. Lots of extra bars and restaurants, and reconstruction of old warehouses into big venues. A whole hotel is gone, and has become a parking lot for the time being until they figure out what their gonna do there. So I have made some mental revisions to my old map in my head, but am going to have a lot of new exploration. I don't think we have any new sudden exterior basement stairs in the sidewalk downtown, yet, but I will need to just expect it could happen, to be on the safe side. I'm so used to just walking really fast downtown knowing where everything has been for several years. I miss hanging out downtown. I have mostly stayed within a ten block radius of my apartment since everything was locked down, except for one bus ride across town to Health & Human Services, which was like the twilight zone. I do miss going everywhere. Slammed my cane on a car hood last night. It had apparently thought it could run the red light and stopped hanging well into the crosswalk, as I was crossing with the steady parallel stream. I could hear it floor from way back and made my cane as highly visible to it as possible. I expected some flack, and possibly to be chased through some parking lots after that, but it didn't happen. Not a peep. I don't have the option to cane conservatively, or stealth like at any traffic light crossing since around this time last year. I'd prefer not to have to slam a hood or windshield in a crosswalk. It's simply necessary to try to stay alive, because that's how crazy the drivers have gotten since, pandemic. I'm safer jaywalk crossing, because traffic lights have become some new weird game for people who drive now. They seem to think they're playing virtual reality.
Well Audrey IM so glad that you were able to avoid a collision with that oncoming vehicle encroaching on your walk space. I totally get it with the drivers just disregarding, Not only basic safety measures but blatantly disregarding driver lol’s. Sitting on my front porch yesterday, I observed with my ears of course, a truck blow right through the stop sign and through the intersection continuing eastbound with no breaking and obviously no inclination there that was a stop sign anywhere. As far as stairways in public spaces, like your town area, there are very specific guidelines or regulations, specifications that cities must adhere to, to protect people without functional vision. Stair cases must be clearly detectable, well ahead of time for persons using white canes to avoid approaching the stairway from the opposite direction and smashing their head. You have given a perfect example of why architectural barriers are not just for people traveling in wheelchairs but also to protect those of us that cannot see obstacles in our way. Thanks so much for adding to this conversation. I really enjoy all of your comments and hope you are staying safe and healthy but not too, too busy. Lol. Love, Beverly
That would be a very good series to do Beverly on your channel. Also, it would be a great addition to our blind community chat discussion. That Diana and I co-host, to have you as our guest in the future. Take Care!
Thanks Paul for commenting and viewing the video and yes, it probably would be a great topic for one of your future uploads. I still have a great deal to learn about the ADA and I am trying to focus on those aspects that pertain to people with visual disabilities. My goal is to learn about the law and then deconstruct it or break it down into understandable segments so, yes, in the future this will be a great topic I think. Just give me a little time to formulate my understanding and more importantly formulate and easy to understand way to explain it all. Hope you’re having a great week and take care! Love, Beverly
